Media Production City

5 results arranged by date

New York, April 17, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to the Egyptian Ministry of Justice on Thursday requesting information about two journalists who were allegedly arrested on Tuesday while attempting to cover the bombing of two electrical pylons that transmit power to the Media Production City in Cairo.

1. Morsi’s Failures

By Sherif Mansour

In June 2012, three days before Mohamed Morsi was declared winner of the presidential election, Bassem Youssef, satirist and host of Egypt’s “Al-Bernameg,” defended the Muslim Brotherhood candidate during an appearance on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” He asked the U.S. audience to give democracy in Egypt a chance. So long as Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood remained accountable to the people and respected human rights, Youssef reasoned, there was no reason they could not lead Egypt’s historic transition to democratic rule.

2. Military Censorship

By Sherif Mansour

A swarm of police vehicles converged on Media Production City moments after Gen. Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi announced on July 3 that Mohamed Morsi had been ousted. The compound outside Cairo is home to nearly every TV station in Egypt, but the police were targeting five particular stations that night: the Muslim Brotherhood-run Misr25, and four pro-Morsi Islamist stations. One by one, the stations’ live coverage went off the air, while police herded and handcuffed about 200 employees, confiscated equipment, and seized cell phones. Taken to a security facility, the employees were interrogated about their associations with the Muslim Brotherhood. Most of the administrative and support workers were released in a few hours, but 22 journalists were kept for more than a day on accusations of conspiring to overthrow the regime.

New York, March 25, 2013--The
Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the violent siege on Sunday of
the Media Production City, a complex housing numerous private news outlets in
Cairo, an episode that followed a series of inflammatory anti-press comments by
President Mohamed Morsi and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

New York, August 16, 2012--President Mohamed Morsi's government and
allies are pushing back against critical news coverage, suppressing critical
journalists and state-run newspapers, putting a journalist on trial, and
attacking three journalists on the street, according to news reports.